Happy National Kale Day!

No joke, National Kale Day is a thing

Kale — otherwise known as the ingredient that just made your salad or juice cost $5 more in a matter of seconds.

Despite its superfood power to make things more expensive, Kale represents the beginning of an ongoing trend that is embodied by a flock of flannel wearing bearded hipsters who wear ethically made clothes to their yoga & meditation classes and spend their spare time nurturing some potted herbs that somehow get called urban gardens — #Wellnessbruh

Kale’s sudden popularity can be credited to a boutique PR agency in New York who were hired to make Kale cool in 2012. Thanks to the agency’s extensive client list in the fashion and music industry Kale became very cool with celebrities promoting kale as much as their new and improved makeup lines. The popularity of kale and all the public endorsements opened up national discussions around healthy lifestyles and eating habits that were perfect for the latest trending social media platform: Instagram. Everything was in place to create the perfect PR campaign storm and that is exactly how #Wellness came to life.

Although the yoga junkies and super food lovers we have re-grouped under #Wellness are easy to mock (despite a majority of us being part of the movement), this ongoing trend has considerably shifted consumer behaviors since its original debut in 2012.

The Holistic Consumer

From research we have conducted we have identified the audience of this trend to be environmentally conscious, lifestyle cautious and health obsessed consumers. We then found an incredibly fitting name.

Holistic Consumers: want products to make them feel good mind body and soul. They feel overwhelmed with the choice in different product markets and have more disposable income allowing them to differentiate products by the added value that the brands provide whether it be social status, environmental awareness or social justice regardless of price differentiation.

The audience for this trend is mainly millennials (18–34 year olds) which represents 23.4% of the US population with 75.4 million individuals. Because millennials are the new buzzword for businesses stirring up just as much excitement as #wellness, interest in this trend and new consumer form has had enormous influence over recent brand strategies.

Brand Fails

A fantastic example of a brand trying to capitalize on this trend despite it being far from what their brand represents is McDonalds. In 2015 McDonalds tried to launch Kale Breakfast bowls in California.. the success of this movement can be tracked by how many kale breakfast bowls you have seen and or had at McDonalds.. yeah that’s right 0.

More recently McDonalds also tried to squeeze itself into #healthyliving by handing out fitness trackers with Happy Meals. A part from the fact that the trackers ended up burning children’s wrists this re-positioning stunt generated considerable amounts of negative PR and criticism around McDonalds hypocritically trying to be something they are not. This example highlights the importance of a well thought out strategy for brands to create genuine and strategic relevance with trends in order to capitalize on new markets and consumers.

Trends are a great opportunity for brands to expand however market penetration and brand re-positioning must be accompanied by a well thought out strategy that allows for easy and transparent transitions. Having an easy transition is essential because if a brand forces themselves on a new trend it can easily destruct any chance of the brand furthering its relevance as seen with McDonalds.

Despite McDonald’s failure there are some successful transitions that have allowed for brands to grow their presence and, in the case we will now discuss, regain market shares.

Brand Wins

Airbnb has shaken up the hospitality industry and eating up important market shares of big hotels around the globe. Although Airbnb’s biggest differentiating factor has been their competitive pricing compared to hotels, they also tapped into new consumer desires to experience cities as locals. The advertising theme for hotels has always triumphed the ability for a hotel to be exactly the same anywhere you go — a Hilton in NY is exactly the same as a Hilton in Paris. Although that theme has worked for years, there has been a recent shift in younger consumers who rate individualism highly, so the thought of staying in an incredibly common place just doesn’t work anymore. Having understood that they needed to change their tune and find a competitive edge, hotels around the world have recently tried to create relevance and added value to their services by leveraging different #wellness advantages that Airbnb can’t offer. Even Hotels, a chain of Hotels around America has gone as far as making their tagline “where wellness is built in”. Their rooms offer extensive gym classes, in room appliances for better sleep as well as personal yoga and meditation instructors for all guests. Even Hotels accurately tapped into a trend with a clear differentiating factor and added value that can attract consumers.

Another good example of tapping into a consumer trend has been Apple’s latest product update. On September 7th Apple held a conference to showcase their newest products. A feature that was highlighted during the conference was the development of an app on the Apple watch that reminds people to breathe mindfully. Wow. Recently big news has also demonstrated that Apple takes it even further by partnering with the health insurance company Aetna to pay consumers to wear the Apple watch as it can encourage healthier lifestyles. Yet again Apple takes the cake here because not only have they made themselves part of the trend, they have positioned themselves as an enabler for the trend itself. Now that’s some good brand strategy and transitioning there that all brands should take inspiration from.

Kale’d out? Let’s wrap it up

The virtues of associating brands with trends range from higher brand awareness to higher revenue but the advantages this can provide for a brand’s social media strategy are also interesting. Our social media listening tool has allowed us to discover that only last month #Health, #Wellness & #cleanliving have been mentioned on social media 6,848,657 times with an overall 83% positive sentiment. Associating your brand with this kind of popularity on social media networks is assuring you are part of a conversation that not only generates a lot of likes and attention but also a lot of positive sentiment.

We all want to be part of emerging trends but only the well thought out strategies and forward thinking brands will succeed in creating a long lasting relationship with the appropriate consumer.

To explore more of our agency’s thoughts around the importance of strategic brand re positioning, have a peak here.